Media coverage

There was a story in the Guardian this morning, aimed to portray the Government as hypocritical, praising the success of Britain's Olympians, while undermining our future medal chances by selling off school playing fields. The newspaper reported:

"Ministers have approved proposals to sell off a London school's playing fields, including six tennis courts and a football pitch, despite mounting criticism of the coalition's planning for an Olympic legacy. The land at Elliott school in Putney, south London, is being sold off to pay for a major refurbishment. It brings the number of school playing field sell-offs approved by the coalition to 22. The Guardian revealed government figures on Monday which show that the sale of school sports fields continues even though ministers declared in the coalition agreement that they would seek to protect them."

However, the Department of Education is in fighting form. They have responded, disputing the figures. The Department says that of the 21 (not 22) playing fields the Government has approved for disposal, 14 belonged to schools that have closed, and four were part of sites that became surplus when existing schools amalgamated. Of the other three:

One was surplus marginal grassland on the school site, the sale of which allowed investment in the school library and sports changing facilities.

One was leased to a company to redevelop and improve a playing field for the school’s use that had poor drainage and was under-used. As a result of the development, the school's playing fields now include four 5-a-side pitches, two 7-a-side pitches, a full sized football and hockey pitch and a six-court indoor tennis facility. The school also profited from private hire of facilities outside school hours.

One was due to be leased to an athletics club to improve sporting provision for both the club and the school, although the project did not go ahead in the end.

This morning, Tory MP Greg Hands tweeted: "Still lots of Labour MPs on Twitter carping and trying to find fault - any fault - they can with the Jubilee. Sad, but not surprising."

Hands was referring to the lack of positive tweets about the Jubilee celebrations coming from Labour MPs. A number of them were tweeting about the bad treatment of unemployed people used as stewards for the celebrations. Other thoughts from Labour MPs included:

Last month, we reported on the contribution of Matthew Elliott, CEO of the TaxPayers' Alliance, to a ConHome event on how to win the next election. Elliott made the important point that Labour's long march of the institutions has not been reversed by the current government. He also said two forthcoming appointments - the Chair of the Charity Commision and the Director-General of the BBC - would test the government's willingness to act on this issue.

The Daily Mail's editorial today - after rightfully attacking the BBC's pitiful coverage of the last few days' Jubilee celebrations - gives us an idea of exactly who Lord Patten of Barnes, the Chairman of the BBC Trust, is likely to appoint to the position of Director-General, after the incumbent, Mark Thompson steps down. The Mail said:

"[I]ncredibly, the man being tipped as the front-runner for the director generalship is an unashamed Labour supporter (he even helped write the party’s manifesto) who has never made a TV programme in his life. Indeed, as head of the media regulator, Ofcom, the only aptitude Ed Richards has shown is for running a bloated quango, with nearly 1,000 staff, housed in magnificent offices by the Thames. This same Mr Richards has been roundly attacked by a Commons committee for his misleading accounting methods (perhaps learned during his time working in Tony Blair’s policy unit alongside Ed Miliband and Ed Balls), his failure to control Ofcom’s exorbitant £140million budget and the lavish salaries he paid the quango’s senior commissars (including almost £400,000 for himself)."

John Prescott took to Twitter yesterday to question whether David Miliband (last week) and Yvette Cooper (this week) should be writing for Rupert Murdoch's Sun on Sunday.

Perhaps the Labour grown-ups want to reach The Sun's five million readers?

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wins a big spread (right) in Britain's newest newspaper for attacking the Coalition's law and order credentials.

Her second reward for ignoring the Prescott boycott was these warm words from The Sun's leader-writers:

"David Cameron's declaration of war on Britain's knife crime scourge won him support from actress Brooke Kinsella — whose brother was stabbed to death — and The Sun. Yet on his watch, knife thugs are spared jail, while robberies at knifepoint rose by ten per cent in the year to the end of September. Labour's Yvette Cooper is speaking our language on crime. It's no surprise to see her cutting the PM's poll lead on law and order."

The Sun also publishes polling which suggests the Tory advantage over Labour on law and order has shrunk from +23% to +12%. Polling published last year by Lord Ashcroft suggested the NHS and crime were biggest barriers between the Conservative Party and winning the next election.

"Meeting police officers in the Midlands last month, I was told a shocking story. A 999 call had come in about a hit-and-run but the nearest officer was 45 minutes away. When the constable finally arrived, blue light flashing, the culprit was long gone. Angry residents started a slow handclap. Police forces are struggling to cope with cuts of 16,000 officers thanks to this government. And communities are paying the price. That is David Cameron's law and order policy: Crime up, police down."

With barely 10% of all departmental spending cuts implemented we will get many more hard case stories like this from Labour in the years to come.

Yesterday the Observer splashed with the headline "George Osborne plan isn't working, say top UK economists" on the back of a letter attacking the Government's strategy for cutting the deficit.

Today the Labour ginger group Compass is trumpeting the fact that it co-ordinated the letter and further delving into the background of the signatories reveals that a large number of the signatories are either not economists or partisan Lefties - or both...

The BBC has been condemned for spending licence payers' money on "an outrageous piece of scaremongering" in the form of a programme which will see all council services withdrawn from one street in Preston as an experiment.

Nick Robinson will front the programme, The Street That Cut Everything, which has just attracted media attention after filming a stunt in which 20 dogs were brought in to foul the street, which would then have to be cleaned up by the residents, not the council.

A BBC spokesman explains the format:

"This programme will explore how a community faces up to the choices involved in living in an era of cuts, and examine the way in which people act as a group when confronted with limited resources and difficult decisions. The filming of the dog-walking scene demonstrates in exaggerated form one of the challenges residents would face if street-cleaning services were cut."

But Stephen Hammond, the Conservative MP and PPS to Eric Pickles, is unamused:

"This is an outrageous piece of scaremongering by the BBC and compromises their editorial integrity. We need a full and frank explanation from the organisation about how and why this is a good use of taxpayers' cash. I shall be reporting them to Ofcom for what quite frankly is a unforgivable breach of editorial standards."

So far, so predictable: Liberal Democrat says she disagrees with Tory
policy (on which her Party, under the terms of the Coalition Agreement,
will abstain in Parliament). However, the Guardian goes on to report
that the acting Chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, Samantha
Callan, then suggested that the tax break may be held over until the
next Parliament. "I
don't think it will happen quickly, for several reasons," she's
reported to have said. "Why
set the cat among the pigeons?" Ms Callan suggested that the Coalition
believes it more important first to eliminate the couples penalty in
the tax credit system.

When I was a reporter on the Sunday Telegraph during the early 1990s, Andrew Neil was viewed, in a certain sense, as the enemy. The Sunday Times was the broadsheet market leader in terms of sales. The Telegraph was trying to catch up (little has changed). Furthermore, Neil was a low Tory whereas Charles Moore, the then Editor (and, as he remains, Greatest Living Englishman), was a high Tory.

In other words, they agreed on much, but disagreed about the role of institutions, such as the Monarchy: Neil was inclined to attack them, Moore to defend them. Neil re-invented himself as a TV presenter long ago, but the clip below from This Week, put up by James Forsyth on Coffee House, demonstrates how brilliantly and brutally he does penetrating interviews.

His subject is Diane Abbott. Abbott has had masses of TV experience - much of it acquired on This Week - and, partly because of it, has fought an punchy Labour leadership campaign to date. But she's no answer to a simple question from Neil: does she believe that West Indian mothers are better mothers than other mothers? During the contest, Abbott's often been seen as a fizzy challenger. Neil made her look like a flighty lightweight.

He retains the pugnacity, the restlessness, the sense of being an outsider that I remember from the 1990s. His right-of-centre flavour is refreshing and unexpected in its BBC context. He must have a mean streak: it takes a certain remorselessness of soul to beat up, as he did, someone who's a partner on his programme. Or perhaps he was just being professional. Either way, he's the BBC's best political interviewer.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories about BBC bias, but during the day several people have commented on the undue prominence given on the Beeb's news bulletins to the economists' letter to this morning's FT in support of Gordon Brown delaying spending cuts.

Although the long-awaited appearance by Tiger Woods this afternoon has rather eclipsed it now, today's economists' letter was was the lead story on the Today programme, BBC Breakfast and the One O'Clock lunchtime news.

Checking back on Sunday's coverage on the BBC, it was third on the running order in the bulletins at 9am and 12pm on BBC1, and relegated to fifth by the early evening bulletin and then seventh by 10pm...

...Perhaps there's more truth to this poster than some at the BBC would like us to believe!